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Subroto Cup announces Star Sports as presenting sponsor

Subroto Cup International Football Tournament

The Subroto Cup International Football Tournament, Asia’s biggest and most prestigious school football tournament is getting bigger and brighter year on year. Bigger, for its sheer volume in terms of the year-long period it takes to conduct the event and the number of teams that will participate, and brighter because of the innovations that have been added to the 57th edition that will take the game of football to every door step.

The Subroto Cup Society has conducted this prestigious tournament for over five decades under the aegis of the Indian Air Force, a tournament which has created the most successful grassroots football programme in India. The Society has over the years strengthened this initiative by making deep-rooted efforts through their Activation & Promotional Outreach programme at Grassroots Level.In a move to build popularity and a national footprint for the tournament, the organisers have brought on board India’s largest and most watched sporting television network as the Presenting Sponsor of the Subroto Cup.

Star Sports – the Presenting Sponsor of Subroto Cup International Football Tournament will join the endeavour of The Subroto Cup to nurture talent at grassroots level and through their far and widespread reach will help take the game to every household.

“The Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society along with the IAF has over the years built a successful grassroots programme that we are extremely proud of and now we are pleased to announce that Star Sports have come on board to further enhance our initiative. Star Sports share our vision in growing the game and through the initiatives they have taken to promote football we are confident that this will be a successful and mutually beneficial association. Promoting the sport through organising clinics in in 22 cities is a novelty that we have added this year and we believe that Star Sports contributions will be vital in achieving our goals. Their efforts and endeavours along with their widespread reach will only help the growth of football at the grassroots and from here we can only look ahead towards a brighter future” said Vijay Yadav, Wing Commander & Honry Secretary, Subroto Mukherjee Education Society.

This year, the first of its kind search for top talent will be rolled out in sync with the PMO’s #KheloFootball mandate & an initiative of the Ministry of Youth Affairs in association with Delhi Dynamos, the Football Development Partner. This programme will take place via 22 Football clinics in different Schools in the Delhi NCR, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan region.

These clinics will be open to all coaches and students to attend and on participation they will be presented with a completion certificate. As a way of promoting the sport, merchandise will be distributed to all participants. The best performing players at the clinics and matches will be selected by the scouts and officials, who will then go on to form a boys and girls teams under the Delhi Dynamos & Subroto Cup coaches. The selected boys and girls teams will get a ‘Wild Card’ entry to participate in the Subroto Cup Tournament.

Speaking at this occasion Prashant Agarwal, Delhi Dynamos FC president said, “DDFC is proud to associate with the Subroto Cup as their Football Development partner. Subroto Cup is the premier youth football tournament of the country and over the years it has helped scout and promote some of the biggest footballers in the country. In fact, some of our senior team players have also played the tournament! It is Delhi Dynamos aim to spot, nurture, and promote the best young footballing talent of the country and partnering with Subroto Cup is a step in exactly that direction. We wish the Subroto team all the best in their endeavour to hold clinics and scout talent across the north of India, and we will continue support them to the best of our abilities and in the spirit that we’ve mutually arrived at.”

A conference focussed at the educator community will also be organised on 27th August 2016 around the theme of Sports for development in education. The conference will educate and provide insight on how sport over a period of time has evolved to support education rather than being a detractor. With this endeavour, the Subroto Cup Society will be conducting an outreach programme under the Community Connect initiative wherein people will be invited to join the celebrations of Football Utsav during Raahgiri Day at Gurgaon, Noida & Connaught Place to popularise the game of football. Various Footballing activities will be conducted along with contests to engage the audience.

Also, the society aims to reach and connect with RWA’s, NGO’s, Schools, Colleges and Sports Clubs inviting them to join this Tournament as they will play a pivotal role in promoting the game of Football.

In sync to this the society will also be connecting with a large community via their Facebook and Twitter page. The content related to unsung heroes, women teams and various other football related updates on the FB page have been getting tremendous response that surely indicates the sense of community support. The society plans to go bigger and better with its future campaigns to ensure the sport and programme garners the traction it deserves across all platforms.

(Subroto Cup Press Release)